Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently said:
“The one thing we fail to talk about is those costs that you don’t see on the bottom line. That is coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it’s global warming. It’s ruining our country, it’s ruining our world. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.”
Watch it on Youtube if prefer seeing your idiots in living color.
Well, how about if YOU stop, Harry. And tell all your fellow liberals and Democrts to stop right along with you. The rest of us realize that we need the stuff, and that we will continue to need it for decades to come.
Let us not forget to point out that Barack Obama has the same stupid and self-defeating ideas about energy.
So it’s not coal and oil that we’re sick of, Harry. We’re sick of you and your irrational and self-defeating energy policies. Coal and oil is what made our country great; it’s what our economy has been – and continues to be – based upon. It’s what we will continue to need in order to continue to improve our way of life.
Stop and think about it: Route 66; the interstate system; distant communities interconnected by vast stretches of freeways and roads. Our entire way of life has been based upon the mobility that oil has provided. We can’t just get rid of oil and keep right on truckin’. The Democrat’s vision will create enormous adjustment and enormous pain for Americans.
At some point, we will clearly need to transition to another dominant source of energy. But there is simply no way that we will be ready to make that transition any time soon. To refuse to allow our vast domestic oil supplies to be utilized by citing theoretical alternatives is foolish beyond crazy.
While a few R.I.N.O. (Republican In Name Only) politicians (I like the term “Stockholm Syndrome Republicans”) have embraced global warming alarmism and environmentalist bans on drilling, the simple fact of the matter is that it was Bill Clinton who vetoed taking advantage of our oil reserves over a Republican effort to expand our supplies, and it has overwhelmingly been Democrats who have thwarted every effort both to increase oil drilling and oil refining every since.
The result is that we have been deliberately left completely vulnerable to just the kind of sky-high prices that we are seeing now.
Democrats argue that drilling is pointless because it won’t produce any results for 10 years. But that is insane. Number one, only a fool doesn’t plan for the future. Number two, had Bill Clinton allowed us to drill in the 90’s we wouldn’t be where we are now. And number three, oil drillers say that they could be getting substantial oil out of the ground within one year; and even the most technically difficult sites wouldn’t take longer than six years to harvest.
Democrats argue that they have provided oil companies with leases giving them access to millions of acres for exploration. But these leases weren’t granted on the basis of geologists’ studies (that these are the best locations for oil); but rather on the basis of “junk” land that doesn’t have any political (and likely not any energy) value. It’s the equivalent of the U.S. Government putting the Indians on the crappiest land in the country and then saying, “There: we’ve given you plenty of land.” The reality is that 92% of our offshore reserves and most of the state and federal lands are off limits to oil companies.The outer continental shelf – which contains the best known sources of oil – are completely off limits to the American oil companies, even as Chinese rigs are going up in those very same oil fields!!!
An Associated Press story titled, “Much of oil, gas off limits” says:
WASHINGTON — About half the oil and more than a quarter of the natural gas beneath 99 million acres of federal land is off-limits to drilling, the Bush administration says in a report that industry sought to highlight environmental and other hurdles to development.
Just 3 percent of the oil and 13 percent of the gas under federal land is accessible under standard lease terms that require only basic protections for the environment and cultural resources, according to the survey, which was ordered last year by Congress.
An additional 46 percent of the oil and 60 percent of the gas “may be developed subject to additional restrictions” such as bans to protect winter rangeland for foraging antelope, nesting areas for bald eagles and jagged slopes from erosion during parts of the year.
The revised inventory, released Tuesday by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, is starkly different from a study done three years ago. That version, which covered 59 million acres in the Rocky Mountains, estimated more than 80 percent of oil and gas was accessible, although in some cases subject to restrictions. Environmentalists often cited that figure in arguing that a wealth of energy resources is available for developing without going into pristine areas now off limits.
And, the actual fact of the matter is that the oil companies are routinely unable to drill even in those leased areas that the Democrats deceitfully claim that they have available to them. There are plenty of stories like this out there:
Billings, Mont. (AP) – Two conservation groups have asked the federal government to impose new restrictions on oil and gas development in the West to protect the greater sage grouse, a popular game bird on the decline.
Scientists contend sage grouse breeding areas are suffering in the face of accelerating oil and gas exploration in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah and other Western states.
West Nile virus, drought and residential development also have taken a toll on the bird, which is being considered for the endangered species list.
Federal rules now say oil and gas companies cannot drill within quarter of a mile of sage grouse breeding areas. Last week, Idaho-based North American Grouse Partnership and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership of Washington, D.C., filed a legal petition asking for the rule be extended to two miles.
I don’t apologize for caring more about my family and friends than I do about some rare species of bird. Frankly, Democrats should be apologizing to the American people for caring more about a few birds than they do about them.
Again and again, Democrats, Democrat-controlled government bureaucracies, and their left-wing allies in the “environmentalist” and “litigation” communities have blocked oil companies from doing anything. The result is years of lawsuits and court proceedings, red tape, delay, and other excessive costs that make such projects unfeasible.
There’s an old joke about a modern-day Noah trying to build an ark in today’s liberal political environment. It certainly has the pro-bureaucracy, anti-business policies that characterize the Democratic Party in mind.
Democrats routinely use environmental groups’ minimized estimates as to how much oil is actually in a given field. The oil companies believe there is much more available in those fields; that’s why they want to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to start getting that oil out of the ground. Think about it: Democrats routinely say that there isn’t very much oil in places like ANWR, and that oil companies don’t want to drill anyway. If that were even remotely true, then why are the Democrats repeatedly preventing oil companies from drilling by force of law? If the Democrats are anything other than lying demagogues, allow the oil companies to drill where they believe the oil is without the massive bureaucratic hassles; and if they don’t drill and increase our oil suppolies, the Democrats could say, “See, we were right.”
“Proven reserves” are resources that drilling has confirmed exist and can be produced with current technology and prices. By imposing bans on leasing, and encouraging environmentalists to challenge seismic and drilling permits on existing leases, politicians ensure that we will never increase our proven reserves. In fact, reserves will decrease, as we deplete existing deposits and don’t replace them. The rhetoric is clever – but disingenuous, fraudulent and harmful.
They have repeatedly argued that opening up ANWR would do virtually nothing to alleviate the price of gasoline. But Democratic Senators have called upon the Saudis to increase production by amounts that would be less – even according to ridiculously low liberal estimates – than the amount of daily oil flow that ANWR would generate.
The Geological Survey and Congressional Research Service say it’s 95% likely that there are 15.6 billion barrels of oil beneath ANWR. And we could add to that an estimated 169 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf, Rockies, Great Lakes, Southwest and ANWR – as well as natural gas, coal, uranium and hydroelectric resources that are currently off limits because of Democratic activism.
One of our best prospects is Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which geologists say contains billions of barrels of recoverable oil. If President Clinton hadn’t bowed to Wilderness Society demands and vetoed 1995 legislation, we’d be producing a million barrels a day from ANWR right now. That’s equal to US imports from Saudi Arabia, at $50 billion annually.
Mexico has increased its oil production 64 percent since 1980. Canada’s production has increased 85 percent. If we’d increased production at the rate of our North American neighbors, we’d be producing 91 percent of our current consumption, noted National Review’s Noel Sheppard.
Democrats routinely demonize oil companies for their “excessive” and “windfall” profits. But – as usual – they merely prove what hypocrites and demogogues they truly are. Look at the revelations from The Hill:
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who calls for “windfall profit taxes on big oil,” has some $200,000 in oil holdings with Exxon and BP. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), who publicly says that oil companies are guilty of “price fixing,” has some $350,000 in oil holdings with Exxon and BP. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tx) – who speaks of “unjustifiable tax breaks for big oil” has $350,000 in Exxon Mobil and Chevron holdings. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) who claims oil companies are “gouging” has $200,000 in holdings with Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and Schlumberger. These Democrats are privately profiting from the very companies they publicly claim are so terrible. What hypocrites!
And they falsely demonize oil profits in the way of the classic demagogue. The reality is that the oil companies invest FAR more than they retain in profits; and the reality is that their profits are actually quite modest given the sheer massiveness of their operations.
Investor’s Business Daily says the following:
Yes, oil companies make money. But they spend more than they make on finding new sources of oil. A new Ernst & Young study shows the five major oil companies had $765 billion of new investment from 1992 to 2006 compared with net income of $662 billion.
Over the same stretch, the industry — which includes 57 of the largest U.S. oil and natural gas companies — had new investments of $1.25 trillion compared with a net income of $900 billion and a cash flow of $1.77 trillion.
This is an industry that has redefined innovation, reinvesting profits to find innovative ways to recover oil and gas wherever they find it. This includes fields once considered “dead,” vast tracts miles beneath the ocean surface, and sands or even shale in North Dakota.
Democrats talk about the need to conserve oil and use alternative energies instead. But do the American people truly want to drastically and dramatically change their way of life when the clear alternative of domestic oil production is readily available? Even the most radical environmentalist activists such as Al Gore clearly don’t want to make such a transition in their own personal lives: Gore has routinely been faulted for his own shockingly high rate of energy consumption. And as I see drivers routinely whiz by me on the freeway, I realize that few Americans are determined to make the kinds of painful sacrifices that Democratic strategies call upon them to make.
Furthermore, there is little evidence that such sacrifice will amount to anything. With China, India, and much of the rest of the developing world increasing its oil consumption, all the “global warming” hyperbole justifying the deliberate restriction of US energy consumption (and therefore economic production) will be “much ado, signifying nothing.” If China and India use the oil we would have used – which by all accounts is exactly what is happening and will continue to happen – then what is the net climate gain?
As a further point revealing the absurdity of Democrats’ claims that we must not drill for oil lest we contaminate the environment and increase global warming, just what do you think is going on in the Middle East? When they increase their production to meet our energy needs (at a massive profit), are they not contaminating the environment and increasing global warming even more than we would, given our higher level of technology and environmental regulations?
Democrats are currently hollering and screaming about speculators artificially driving up the price of gas. But let us consider this:
NEW YORK — Oil prices rose Monday on disappointment over Saudi Arabia’s modest production increase and concerns that output from Nigeria will decline. Retail gas prices, meanwhile, inched lower overnight, but appear unlikely to change much as long as oil prices stay in a trading range.
Saudi Arabia said Sunday at a meeting of oil producing and consuming nations that it would turn out more crude oil this year if the market needs it. The kingdom said it would add 200,000 barrels per day in July to a 300,000 barrel per day production increase it first announced in May, raising total daily output to 9.7 million barrels.
But that pledge at the meeting held in the Saudi city of Jeddah fell far short of U.S. hopes for a larger increase. The United States and other nations argue that oil production has not kept up with increasing demand, especially from China, India and the Middle East.
The fact that the price of oil goes UP when the supply goes DOWN ought to tell you something about what is truly driving the shocking price increases: supply and demand.
As we see the volatility of oil prices, and as we see that threats in the Middle East, or in unstable regimes such as Nigeria, send our prices through one roof after another, thinking, rational people must surely come to realize that there is an urgent, long-term strategic need for American to have it’s own stable domestic oil supply.
And one political party – the Democrats – are clearly standing in the way of that critical strategic goal. Our survival depends upon energy independence. But Democrats are literally STANDING on our ability to provide that independence.
Start Thinking Right 